


The Road Outward

by victoriousscarf



Series: Even with the Distance Slowly Wearing Out Your Name [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Neville Longbottom, Gringotts Wizarding Bank, It's gonna get worse before it gets better, Lavender survives the BoH and becomes a werewolf, Multi, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, The Neville/Snape is past tense, as this is part two that should surprise no one, but it's still the guiding principle of this story, wizarding world justice is questionable at best
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2020-12-24 16:07:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21102206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoriousscarf/pseuds/victoriousscarf
Summary: Neville sat on the hard Gringotts chair, still unsure why he was there was the goblin in front of him shuffled papers in the silence. Neville recognized the room from when he’d been given his parent's estate the year before when he turned seventeen.Even if it felt like it had been a lifetime ago instead of just one year, and even if he had no idea who would have put him in their will now.





	1. Chapter 1

Neville sat on the hard Gringotts chair, still unsure why he was there was the goblin in front of him shuffled papers in the silence. Neville recognized the room from when he’d been given his parent's estate the year before when he turned seventeen.

Even if it felt like it had been a lifetime ago instead of just one year, and even if he had no idea who would have put him in their will now.

“Is,” he finally started when the goblin across from him finally looked up.

“Do you know why you are here, Mr. Longbottom?” he asked.

“No,” Neville admitted.

“Before his passing Mr. Snape deposited not just one, but two new will with us,” the goblin said and Neville tensed, his spine turning to lead. “You are included in both of them.”

“Two?” Neville asked.

“There were conditions for both,” the goblin said. “One was if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named outlived him and another if he was defeated before Mr. Snape died.”

“So it’s the first one then?” Neville asked.

“No, certainly not. They died within mere hours of each other, and so the second will is the one in effect.” Neville blinked once and the goblin snorted. “In fact the provisions were very clear that the second will would be in effect so long as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named died before the wills were read, no matter how much earlier Mr. Snape had died himself.”

Neville stared at the goblin in front of him, realizing he already knew far more than the majority of the Wizarding World about his relationship with Snape. “And what did the second will contain?”

“You are to inherit all of Snape’s worldly property,” the goblin said and Neville felt his jaw drop. “His books, his supplies, the wizarding home of Spinner's End.”

“That cant possibly be right,” Neville said too quickly.

“Do you doubt the authenticity of this will?” the goblin asked, arching a brow at him.

“I—no,” Neville managed. “But—”

“This was the will of the man,” the goblin said, eyes glittering as he watched Neville try to contain himself in his office. “You may contest it of course, if you wish, but who knows what will happen to the property in question if that happens. It most likely will be auctioned off.”

“No,” Neville said quickly. “No, I will take it. My apologies, this is just quite a surprise to me.”

“Yes, I suspect it is something that will surprise many people,” and Neville felt his heart lurch again.

“Wait. I thought I had the choice to seal any conversation that might happen here,” Neville said. “Unless there’s a clause in the will insisting it is made public, I have to right to ask it remain sealed once it’s conditions have been met.”

“That is true,” the goblin agreed. “Is that your wish?”

“Yes,” Neville said.

“I admit many of us wondered if you would ask to seal it,” the goblin said, shuffling his papers again. He set them down and folded his small hands on top, giving Neville another piercing look. “The world among you wizards is small. Something like this will come out.”

“You almost sound like you’re giving me a warning,” Neville said and the goblin gave him a sour look.

“Perish the thought of a goblin warning a wizard of anything,” he said archly. “Do you want to know what the other will said?”

“What?” Neville asked, thrown.

“The contents of the first will. Do you want to hear what they might have been?”

“I,” Neville paused before he nodded.

The goblin shuffled some more papers together before looking up and Neville felt pinned by the look in his eyes. “The majority of Snape’s possessions would have gone to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, including the wizarding house of Spinner’s End. That was usual in Death Eater wills. Apparently the Dark Lord was very interested in property. However, he made several exceptions that even in the case of a continued war, would have come to you. Particularly several object designed to sense or counteract curses, several potion recipes, I believe of Mr. Snape’s own design, and several books on the dark arts which are quite rare. I believe in several cases Mr. Snape’s copies are the only extant editions.”

Neville's chest was too tight and his hands had balled into fists on the table between them. The goblin’s eyes flickered down and then back to his face.

_Win one war before declaring the next_, Snape had asked him and even if Snape had died before the end of the war, he had tried to give Neville the best chance or surviving he could.

Neville wanted to strangle him.

If only he could have.

“Thank you,” he managed finally.

The goblin quirked one brow before nodding. He slid several pages across the desk. “You’ll have to sign these to take possession. There is also a deed to Spinner’s End. While you read that I will draw up the confidentiality clause.”

“Alright,” Neville said, bowing his head over the parchment and he felt the sting of salt in the corner of his eyes to see Snape’s precise handwriting. He had been too numb to cry much since he stood in the Headmaster’s office, and he didn’t want to do it here.

It took him a long time to read through the will and the deed and sign what the goblin had indicated he should sign. He had to pause several times and cover his eyes but the goblin across from him never commented on those moments of weakness. Instead he took the papers as Neville finished them and handed him the new clause that would keep this entire conversation secret.

“Would you like to see the contents of his vault before we transfer it into your own?” he asked when it was finally over.

“Alright,” he agreed, pushing himself to his feet with great effort. The goblin glanced at him again and then looked away, not commenting. At least Neville's hands had almost stopped shaking, and when he concentrated he could write without any squiggles giving him away. The bruises and blood were gone, but he only wore long sleeves to cover the scars on his arm. He thought one silvery scar could be seen poking up the side of his neck but he figured people would have to be looking for it to notice it.

“Thank you for everything Mr.,” and then Neville paused. “I—I missed your name.”

That caught the goblin’s attention as he turned around to look at Neville. “I never gave it.”

“Why not?” Neville asked.

“Because wizards don’t usually ask,” the goblin said and Neville could only stare back at him.

When the goblin turned around, Neville followed him.

-0-

Neville did not go to Spinner’s End that night, staying instead at a wizard hotel in Hogsmeade, where many survivors of the battle were staying when they worked on repairing Hogwarts for the next school year or looked for a house after theirs had been destroyed during the war.

But the next day he went.

The door creaked when he pushed it open and he looked around, wondering if Snape and entered the house more than ten times since he had inherited it himself. It looked like the sort of place you would have gone out of your way to avoid during the summer months. Or any other time.

He set the small vial of Snape’s memories on the mantle and spent the next week cleaning the house. He found himself throwing out ancient wizarding objects that would probably have been sentimental to other pureblood families, but he wasn’t feeling sentimental about much after Hogwarts.

It was also clear the house had fallen into disrepair at least a century ago and had never been fixed so at least he finally had something to take his mind off things while the auror department put itself back together enough to take in new recruits.

His gran had found a new house with the help of their family and she asked him where he had been staying. He lied and said with a friend, even though he was really staying with a ghost.

At first it felt weird, to sleep there without the sounds of anyone else. He had never lived on his own before, let alone in a house that had once belonged to Snape.

But eventually he finished cleaning, and turned his attention to the books Snape had left him. Some were ancient and he felt a bit nervous holding them. But what surprised him the most was the set of journals Snape had filled out, in that precise sprawl of his. They were notes, in meticulous order, about the other Death Eaters. They included notes about who was actually under the Imperius curse and who wasn’t, who had secret bolt holes and where the ones Snape knew of where.

The first time he opened one, Neville had had to sit down hard, just staring at it.

It was like Snape had taken all that had plagued the Ministry and aurors last time, and decided to skip ahead to making sure they actually caught the Death Eaters.

Of course, no one would believe him if he told them about the journals, or insisted that Snape’s word was good.

But it was a road map and he had creased the pages the way he held it so tightly.

He thought again of Snape telling him to win one war before he declared the next one. And here Snape was, making sure he had the chance.

-0-

The trials started and Neville originally planned on skipping the entire show. Anyone else could speak just as well, but he had the unfortunate luck to run into Harry Potter.

“Neville,” Harry said, and he smiled but there was still exhaustion in his shoulders, around the corner of his mouth.

“Harry,” Neville said, and still felt like there was a gulf between them.

“Are you coming?” Harry asked and Neville blinked.

“To what?”

“The trials,” Harry said. “I thought—with everything you saw at Hogwarts, you might want to have a say.”

“I think others could have just as much of a say,” Neville said, looking away.

“Maybe,” Harry said after a beat. “But you should come, anyway.”

And even then, with the year when they didn’t see each other at all, with all the pain they went through on opposite sides of the country, with all that Neville felt like Harry had abandoned them even when he knew it wasn’t really his fault, he couldn’t deny Harry Potter much.

So he went, and for the most part he sat silent through all of the speeches, the grandstanding, the punishments. The Death Eaters on trial were the ones who had been caught at the battle of Hogwarts mostly. Not many of the students were standing trial, expect Draco Malfoy and Gregory Goyle.

Neville almost felt like that was unfair, considering some of the things that the other students had done.

He stayed seated throughout Goyle’s trial, even if he could have stood up and talked about the curse he put on him in the bathroom, the one that caused the thin scars up and down his chest which still ached. He found himself rubbing the silvery scar on his shoulder at one point, and when he looked up Draco Malfoy was watching him with fearful eyes, like he expected Neville to say something.

Even though Malfoy had fallen out with his former friends during the year, had been rejected by both Crabbe and Goyle as too weak, it seemed like he still cared for them. Or at least for Goyle, who still survived.

But Neville did not speak, and no one else besides Draco or Goyle or he knew about what happened that day that was still alive.

During Draco’s trial, Harry stood, and spoke passionately about how much Draco did not want to kill Dumbledore, how he failed at the end, and how he had not betrayed him to the other Death Eaters when he was brought to Malfoy Manor.

Draco’s face became increasingly pinched but he didn’t say anything, even as Harry kept talking.

But when Neville rose, his eyes registered real terror, because Neville had said so very little.

Neville wondered if he was remembering the time he performed an unforgivable curse on Neville and dropped him off one of Hogwart’s landings.

It was suddenly dead silent, everyone in the room watching him, including Harry. In the silence, he cleared his throat. “This is a small thing,” he said, and there was still something frantic in the way Draco was watching him. “This is nothing like what Harry just said, or the evidence he had. This isn’t about whether Draco saved anyone or hurt anyone,” and now Draco was just frowning at him. “But not once, but twice, Draco Malfoy risked his own safety to pass a message to me. Both times the message was that one of my friends was okay.”

There was a murmur and Draco’s jaw had fallen.

“As I said, it is but a small thing, but we all just lived through a war that often felt hopeless,” Neville continued. “Bringing even a little bit of a light, even a little bit of hope, that mattered. So it was a small thing. But it mattered,” and he met Draco’s eyes finally.

He sat down to the sound of silence, not certain he wanted to cope with what that meant. That his voice meant so much now.

But it did, so he sat silent through most of the rest of the day.

Draco caught him later, because he was still free, but watched. “You didn’t have to tell them that,” he said, his mother standing several feet behind him, her hands in his pockets and watching them sharply.

“I know,” Neville said.

“You could have told them something else too,” Draco said.

“I know that too,” Neville said, and it was still between them, the time Draco had hurt him.

“You could have said something about Goyle,” Draco said and they stared at each other a moment because they had the same scars from the same curse.

“But I didn’t,” Neville said.

“Why _not_?” Draco asked.

“Did you want me to?” Neville asked.

“No,” Draco said, too quickly. “I just don’t know why you didn’t.”

“Because we were just kids,” Neville whispered. “And the war is over.”

Draco looked away from him. “Do you think we’ll ever actually believe it’s over?” he asked and Neville wondered when they had come to this, when he had found himself fond of Draco Malfoy.

“Someday,” he said, and hoped he would believe it.

-0-

Neville Longbottom was a war hero, and he had avoided people for weeks to avoid facing the way they looked at him now.

It was one thing, with the other students who knew what Hogwarts had been. Others had survived their own war, but Neville wasn’t sure how to relate to them yet.

But now people he had never even met looked at him with a glint in their eye, and it made him retreat every time he saw it.

Seamus and Luna became fed up with him before anyone else did. Seamus invited him around to the small flat he and Dean had taken out. Luna just showed up on the doorstep of Spinner’s End because she was the only person who had the ability to do so.

“Luna,” Neville said slowly, uncertain how he felt about her sitting in the living room there, even though he had specifically given her access.

“Neville,” she replied, resting her hands on the arms of the armchair she sat in. “You’ve been hiding.”

“Yes,” he agreed, because it was true.

She sighed, and it was so soft he almost missed it. “I worry about you,” she said. “You know that.”

“I do,” he said, and couldn’t sit still, so he rose to stand near the mantle in the living room.

“Are you lonely?” she asked.

“I don’t know how to be around other people yet,” he said. “Even going to London is too much right now. I went to visit my parents the other day and,” he trailed off because people had been staring at him, had been whispering as he passed and it made his skin crawl.

“Have you seen Lavender?” Luna asked.

“I stopped by,” Neville said. “She’s still barely talking.”

Luna looked down at her hands. “Did they say when they’re going to release her from St. Mungo’s?”

“Once they make certain they have a regular source for her for the full moon potions,” Neville said and Luna’s eyes flickered up.

“She—”

“Yeah,” Neville whispered because there had been a full moon since the battle, and everyone’s hope that she had just gotten a few wolf-like characteristics like Bill Weasley had gotten went up in smoke when she changed in her hospital room.

“What are you going to do, Nev?” Luna asked, crossing her hands in her lap and pinning him with a look.

“I told you,” he said. “I’m going to join to aurors.”

“And between now and then?” she asked and he moved over, sitting down across from her.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

She reached out and held his hand and they stayed like that in silence for a while.

-0-

The next day Neville found a sheaf of papers waiting for him on his table, neatly tied with a ribbon. It was an exact copy not just of the will that had been enacted, but Snape’s second will, plus the confidentiality clause.

There was a note tucked into the front.

_For your records. _

_\--Gorlast. _

Neville stared at that for a moment, remembering the goblin being surprised when he asked his name.

He put the wills in one of the bookcases, next to the vial of Snape’s memories.

When he went to sleep that night, he dreamed of Hogwarts, of the feel of Snape’s hand on his, of the sound of battle, and he woke up long before dawn.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not gonna lie this world wide pandemic has not been good for my creative output but today my stress finally reached a nirvana like state that like pushed through the background noise and back into some small measure of creativity. And apparently my brain decided what this called for was a bucket load of the angst.

Dean sat across from him and again it struck Neville just how awkward they had become.

“So,” Dean tried, because Seamus had gone into the kitchen to scrounge for tea, a turn of phrase that concerned Neville.

“So,” he managed and they went back to staring at each other.

“This didn’t use to,” Dean started.

“No,” Neville agreed. “It was a long year I guess.”

“Yeah,” Dean said and they were back to staring at each other. “You and Seamus got close,” Dean said suddenly and Neville finally realized at least part of the awkwardness was Dean struggling to say what had been bothering him.

“We did,” Neville agreed. “As I said, it was a _long_ year.”

Dean shifted, like that wasn’t the answer he wanted and Neville figured out what he was really asking. “It—it wasn’t anything like that,” he said, almost too fast. “We were just the only two left in the tower and it was lonely with just the two of us, and then as people disappeared through the year,” he shrugged. “We just got used to looking out for each other. It’s not—if you’re thinking that it wasn’t—”

“Wasn’t what?” Seamus asked, appearing in that exact second and Neville buried his face in his hands. “Dean, seriously?”

“I wasn’t,” Dean started to protest.

“He was,” Neville said. “But we weren’t.”

“Except for the cuddles,” Seamus said brightly and both Dean and Neville stared at him. “It was just one time anyway,” he added when neither of them looked amused.

And then he set the tea down between them and sat on the couch next to Dean. “Hey, Nev, where are you even staying these days? I’ve barely seen you around.”

“I found a place,” Neville hedged.

“Anyone ever going to see it?” Seamus asked.

“Luna has,” Neville said and Seamus kept staring at him. “It’s, um, I’m just not ready for that.”

“What, people coming over?” Seamus asked.

“Yeah,” Neville said and Seamus cocked his head to one side, and his hand had taken Dean’s on the couch between them, like he hadn’t even noticed.

“I mean, if that’s what you need,” he said. “Did you make it unplottable and all that shit too?”

“Actually,” Neville started and Seamus looked somewhere between sad and fond.

“Well, in the meantime you’re always welcome here,” Seamus said and Dean glanced sideways at him.

“Yeah,” he agreed, even though Neville wasn’t sure he meant it.

“Thank you,” Neville said, finally taking a tea cup, though he did not do much more than turn it around in his hands a few times. “I’m surprised you got such a nice flat so fast.”

“That’s because it’s technically on the muggle side of town,” Seamus said and Neville looked around again in curiosity. “It’s not connected to the Floo network and honestly I can’t mind that too much.”

“Better security,” Neville said automatically and Seamus and he exchanged a look.

“Think we’ll get over the war anytime soon?” Dean asked after a beat.

“I’m going to remind you what I just said about my house,” Neville said and Dean actually cracked a smile at him, the first Neville could remember since the Battle of Hogwarts.

“Man, how did you get a whole house?” Seamus asked. “I mean, I know you have the whole Longbottom fortune—”

“It’s not that much of a fortune,” Neville protested.

“Sure, it’s not the Blacks or Malfoys, but you’re still one of those sacred twenty-eight.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Neville said and Seamus rolled his eyes.

“Sure, sure,” he said and Neville did not say he had paid nothing for the house. It had been a gift after all.

-0-

Neville kept working on Spinner’s End, and dodged everyone’s questions about where he was. Those who had been at Hogwarts with him let him have his secrets about where he was staying, but only because they insisted he come to them.

Which he would have done anyway, shuffling between Lavender, still at St. Mungo’s and the rest of Dumbledore’s Army.

“You’re still acting like it’s your responsibility to take care of us all,” Padma said, when he showed up with coffee and a potted plant.

“I know it’s not,” Neville started. “I just—”

“It’s hard to turn it off, isn’t it?” she asked, and she looked even thinner than she had during the year. “All of it.”

“Yes,” he said. “How—how are you—”

“I’m alive,” she said. “That, that’s something, even when she isn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” was all Neville could say, because there was nothing more to say for a fallen sister.

Those that had not been at Hogwarts didn’t get it nearly as much.

“Why are you hiding?” Hermione asked when they ran into each other at the Ministry.

“I’m not hiding,” Neville said.

“Then why are you avoiding us?” Hermione asked with a frown. “We barely see you around—” and Neville shrugged.

“I’m not really avoiding you,” he said. “If I’m avoiding anyone, it’s everyone.”

She sighed, looking down at the sheaf of papers in her arms. “I’m just worried about you. No one even knows where you’re staying—”

“Because for now that’s how I want it to be,” Neville said, and he honestly could not have said if he ever intended to tell anyone else about Spinner’s End. Ginny had guessed where he lived, but her face had only gone tight for a minute and Neville realized they still were not ready to talk about it.

Hermione kept frowning, but she stopped pressing. “Are you here about the Auror sign ups?” she asked instead.

“Yes,” Neville said, because nothing had changed his mind, least of all Snape’s neatly kept journals.

“So is Ron and Harry,” Hermione said, voice small.

“They’re not going back to Hogwarts?” Neville asked.

“I don’t think just about anyone is,” Hermione said, and she looked annoyed by it. Neville hated to tell her that too many of them had more memories than just the horror of the final battle. But even that would have been enough to keep him away, if the entirety of Seventh Year hadn’t been. “But we were on the run all year, it wasn’t even like—”

“Don’t worry,” Neville said, voice going flat without him meaning it to. “We didn’t learn much of anything at all.”

Her eyes flickered back up to him. “It just seems wrong, to leave our education unfinished like that.”

Neville could only shrug. “I passed a few of my N.E.W.T.S.”

“I’m not sure Harry or Ron even sat for the tests,” Hermione muttered.

“Well, it’s hard to deny the hero of the Wizarding World anything at this point,” Neville said. “And if he doesn’t want to take his N.E.W.T.S and join the Aurors anyway, I think they’re just going to be happy to have him.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Hermione asked. “After everything, to—”

“Well, I hate to remind you what I’m here for,” Neville said. “If that’s what you think.”

He could see her shoulders deflate. “I suppose,” she said. “I just wish, well, I just wish we could have had a normal seventh year.”

For a long moment all Neville could do was stare at her, trying to figure out what that even would have meant. A normal seventh year would have meant Snape would never have caught him in the middle of the night.

“But that’s not what we got,” he said and she only shook her head, looking more exhausted than Neville had ever seen her.

“No, it’s not,” she whispered.

-0-

He signed up with the Aurors the same day Ron and Harry did. Several other witches and wizards from earlier years had also signed up, feeling like they needed to contribute something to the end of the war.

“Sometimes I don’t even know why they’re putting us through training,” Ron said, a few nights later when the three of them had retreated from their other classmates to get a drink.

“It’s not like they can just toss us out there,” Harry said, and looked a bit put out at being the voice of reason—or the advocate for more training.

“Even though I’m pretty sure we have more experience than our teacher in the field?” Neville asked and Harry pulled a face at him. “We need to be out there. Death Eaters are still out there.”

“It’s only going to be a couple of months,” Harry said, and looked down at his drink. “For the initial training, anyway.”

Neville glanced at the other two, and wondered if he was ever going to stop feeling the same gulf with them he did with Dean. Surely time would heal those wounds.

-0-

The next day at training their teacher caught his hands shaking when they were talking about potions.

“Longbottom!” he barked and Neville jumped. “What are your hands doing?”

“My what?” Neville asked, looking down, and now everyone was staring at him. “They’re shaking.”

Williamson crossed his arms over his chest. “They’re shaking, are they? Does the topic of potions concern you that much?”

“What?” Neville asked, stupid. “You think it’s because—because I’m scared or nervous?”

“Is there another reason?” Williamson asked, and Neville remembered once when everyone in a class staring at him would have been cause for becoming scared or nervous.

“Yes, curse damage,” he said. “I don’t even notice it anymore.”

There was a moment of silence. “Curse damage,” Williamson repeated, like he was trying to decide exactly what Neville meant. Something had gone still in Harry’s face. “You don’t even—how long, exactly, has this been going on?”

“I don’t know, a couple months into seventh year, on or off,” Neville said, curling his hands into fists at his side just to get people to stop staring. “Apparently it should pass in a few more months.”

Harry’s look changed into one of distress. “Neville—”

“What?” Neville asked, looking over at him. “The Carrows enjoyed teaching the Unforgivable Curses to students,” and he had never felt so alone as to stand there in a class of other Auror recruits and to realize none of them had been at Hogwarts that year. “The Cruciatus Curse wasn’t even the worst of it.”

“How was that not the worst of it?” Ron asked, and Williamson was looking slightly green. Considering how this conversation had started, Neville almost felt a vicious thrill at that. 

“There were a lot of curses that year,” Neville said and when he turned back around, he realized Harry was staring at his neck. Just as suddenly, he darted out, grabbing Neville’s hands. “Harry, what are you—” but then Harry had pushed his sleeve up, revealing the silvery crisscross of scars. Luckily it wasn’t the arm that had been torn apart but the other curse, because he hardly wanted to explain both scars at once.

Harry’s eyes were blazing when he looked back up. “You defended Draco,” he hissed. “You stood at his trial and you defended him when—”

“It wasn’t Draco,” Neville said, and wondered when Harry had started using the other boy’s first name. “He didn’t do this.”

Something else passed over Harry’s face and he dropped Neville’s arm. “Then—then—”

“It wasn’t Snape either,” Neville said, and everyone was still just standing there and it was starting to make Neville’s shoulder blades itch.

“Who else _knows_ it?” Harry asked, and Neville crossed his arms over his chest, just in case Harry tried to grab his arm again.

“Crabbe and Goyle,” he said. “Draco says he told them by accident, but it’s not his fault they used it.”

Harry’s expression remained dark. “Which one of them—”

“Crabbe,” Neville lied, because he had not said anything at Goyle’s trial. It hardly mattered to bring it up now.

“What curse is it?” Williamson asked, breaking into whatever moment was stretching on too long between Neville and Harry.

“One for enemies,” Neville said, still meeting Harry’s eyes. “It’s usually quite deadly unless you know the counter curse.”

“That means Snape must have been the one to heal you,” Harry said.

And Neville felt his eyes narrow at him, because he could remember lying, almost delirious in pain on the headmaster’s floor, pulling Snape closer and holding on. “Yes,” he said, holding himself carefully. “He did. He had a no students murdered policy.”

“Did you ever wonder why he had that policy?” Harry asked.

“Are you seriously trying to score a point with me right now?” Neville asked.

Williamson cleared his throat again. “Did—did you undergo any other curses?” he asked. “Your—your experience might be beneficial to others here,” but he sounded uncertain.

“Yes,” Neville said. “The Imperius Curse and,” he sighed before rolling up his other sleeve to show off the long, ragged scar. “Whatever this one was.”

Williamson looked queasy and Neville wanted to ask him if he had just been a bad Auror before the war, or if he just hadn’t expected so many scars on a seventeen-year-old boy. “That one,” Williamson said. “Is a very dangerous curse.”

“They all were,” Neville said.

“It was really that bad at Hogwarts?” one of the older students asked, and Neville vaguely recognized her as a Ravenclaw that had been two years ahead of them.

“Yes,” Neville said, pulling his sleeve back down. “But don’t worry,” he said, focusing back on Williamson. “About my hands. They aren’t going to slow me down at this point.”

Williamson could only nod, though he caught Neville later, when they were leaving for the day. “Longbottom,” he said and Neville stopped, because it meant putting off Harry, who was obviously waiting for him. “I just wanted to say—I’m sorry for—I knew your parents. They were Aurors when I was just starting out.”

“Thank you,” Neville said automatically, like he did anytime someone mentioned his parents. He wasn’t even sure what he was thanking any of them for.

“I just,” Williamson said. “With what happened to them. And with what has happened to you—”

“If I was going to go mad,” Neville said. “No offense. But I think I would have already done it,” and Williamson looked gutted.

“That’s not what I was going to say,” he whispered. “I just wish you hadn’t had to fight in the same war.”

“Right,” Neville said, and he wondered for a moment how his fifth-year self might have reacted to something like this. With far less bile probably, but then again his fifth-year self hadn’t survived the last two years, he had. “Thank you.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Williamson said, more subdued, and when he left Neville could only sigh and go to meet Harry.

“Whatever you’re going to say, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to hear it,” he said.

Harry frowned. “I was going to apologize,” he said.

“For what?” Neville asked.

“For the curse,” Harry said. “If I had never used it, if I had never been so stupid, you would never have had to endure it either.”

Neville turned to him. “Why did you use it anyway? What were you thinking?”

“I found Snape’s old potions book,” Harry said and Neville took a deep breath.

“Sixth year,” he said. “You got so good at potions—”

“Yeah,” Harry said, like he didn’t think of the fact they had barely spoken at all during all of sixth year. Harry had always seemed to have something else to do, and Neville had never been so bothered by that as he had been that year, after the comradery of the first Dumbledore’s Army. “All that was written below the curse was ‘for enemies,’ and well, the book had steered me right with potions so I didn’t even think about it—”

“It hurts,” Neville said abruptly, and Harry froze. “All the time, the scars ache. I can ignore it most of the time, but that doesn’t change it.” He paused, seeing the pain on Harry’s face. “And it hurts Draco too.”

“I didn’t mean it to,” Harry whispered.

“I know,” Neville said, and he thought about the way Draco had looked, pointing a wand at him and sending him off the stairs. That should have been the memory that made him hate Draco, but instead he also remembered him in the library, telling him his scars ached too, and he remembered Draco shoving him and telling him Luna was alive. “I know you didn’t, but that’s what happened. There’s a lot we’ll all have to find a way to live with.”

“Are you?” Harry asked, and Neville squinted at him in confusion. “Living with it?”

And he sounded so wistful, Neville had to look at him again. “I’m working on it,” he said finally. “It’s a process.”

“Yeah,” Harry whispered. “I guess it is.”

“Some days,” Neville admitted. “I’m not very good at it. But I think a day will come when the good days outnumber the bad days and I think at that point I’ll actually believe I survived.”

“Have any time table on that?” Harry asked, wry.

“At my current rate I think it will take about five to ten years,” Neville said and Harry cracked a smile.

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“Wanna get drunk to get through today?” Neville asked and Harry paused before nodding. When Neville started walking, he hesitated so Neville stopped at the door.

“Do you really not believe me about Snape?” Harry asked.

“Why does it bother you so much if I do or don’t?” Neville asked.

“Because,” Harry said. “I just—I want him to be remembered. And you said he healed you so I just—”

“Look,” Neville said. “I believe you. But that doesn’t change for me, what happened that year, alright?”

And Harry finally nodded, joining him at the door. “I’m still sorry,” he said. “For the curse.”

“I know,” Neville said, because there wasn’t really anything else he could say. Instead they thankfully went to the nearest pub and stopped talking about all the things that hurt them for a while.

But Neville still woke up in the middle of the night, alone in Spinner’s End, hands flailing out for something not there.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope no one thought we were going to be done with the Draco Malfoy feelings any time soon because let's be honest, they're only starting. 
> 
> (Also I wrote this chapter in like a fit of random rage at someone dismissing Neville when really I should have been going to sleep, so like, never let anyone tell you spite isn't the appropriate motivator for your life).

Spinner’s End technically had a yard.

It was tiny and overgrown and Neville avoided it for a long time because it depressed him too much to even look at.

However, during one of the few breaks they had during Auror training he decided enough was enough and spent two days building a greenhouse over the entirety of the tiny space. He planted a few flowers around the edge and enchanted the inside to be four times larger than the yard itself was.

Sometime on the second day when he was elbow deep in dirt and feeling like he was breathing right for the first time in weeks, he wondered why a pureblood family even owned such a dilapidated house in a Muggle city. Obviously, Snape’s mother had married a Muggle, but the house itself was seeped deep with old magic, and he could feel it as he walked from room to room.

He planted several rows of plants before the Auror’s called his attention back to them, and left most of the greenhouse empty.

Auror training increasingly felt like an exercise in frustration, when they all had such wildly divergent experiences during the war. The older students had barely even fought, and one of them had sat out the whole war in France. He had only returned out a sense of duty to help his people recover and Neville tried not to hate him.

It wasn’t fair to hate him.

But one day, the middle of the week after he built the greenhouse, he turned the corner to see Draco Malfoy standing in the middle of the hallway, fingers turning white on the parchment he was holding.

“Draco,” Neville said and Draco startled like he had forgotten where he was.

“Longbottom,” he said, voice chilly. “What are you—”

“I’m technically supposed to be here,” Neville said. “What are you doing here?” and Neville arched a brow toward the parchment Draco was holding.

Draco swallowed, and swallowed again before he started to smooth out the parchment. “I, um, well, I’m—”

Neville stared, because even at the worst of things, he could never remember a time Draco Malfoy was speechless about anything. “Are you alright?”

“What the fuck do you think, Longbottom?” Draco said, and he finally gave up his death grip on one edge of the parchment to tug at one of his sleeves, as if it had ever been in danger of riding up. Neville found his eyes tracking that motion and he felt sick for a moment.

“Were there any problems?” Neville asked. “With your trial or—”

“No, not with that,” Draco said, one arm still holding his sleeve down. He tipped his head back, and Neville could see him attempting to wrap his usual arrogance around himself. “It’s fine, everything is fine.”

“Which is why I found you in a hallway in the Ministry of Magic, looking like someone had just crushed your world?” Neville asked and Draco jerked like he’d been hit. “Seriously, Draco—”

“Stop _calling_ me that, Longbottom,” Draco snapped.

“Sorry,” Neville said, voice going breezy. “We survived a war and I kept you out of jail. I get to call you by your first name now.”

“You didn’t,” Draco started. “I mean, you did. I know you did. But it wasn’t _just_ you—”

“No, it was also Harry Potter,” Neville said. “Which must sting even _worse_.”

“Yes, if you’re quite done—”

“Why are you here, Draco?” Neville asked and Draco yanked his gaze away, mouth a thin, angry line.

“Because I need a job,” he spat to the distance, instead of looking at Neville. “The Ministry took just about anything He-Who—Voldemort. Anything he left behind, they took. Except the fucking house, and the fucking peacocks, but everything else is gone.”

For a moment all Neville could do was stare at him. “Really? They just—”

“Well, we were on the losing side,” Draco said, finally looking back at him and it made sense, the way he was holding himself, the way he was gripping the parchment like it was his only lifeline.

“They turned you down, didn’t they?” Neville said, softer. “Whoever you were asking for a job.”

“Well, my father’s name has become poison,” Draco spat. “Let alone—let alone my own.”

“Who did you ask?” Neville asked, inching closer.

“Does it matter? I’ve run up and down this ministry and no one, literally no one, is willing to give me anything,” Draco said. “I even asked the fucking kitchen and they—they said no.”

“The kitchen,” Neville said blankly.

“The fucking kitchen,” Draco sighed, like all the fight had gone out of him at once.

“Well, assuming you aren’t going to punch me in the face for this then,” Neville said. “I have an idea,” and Draco scowled at him.

“Longbottom, I may have grown to respect the fact you are who you are, but your ideas are universally terrible ones.”

“I mean, can you really judge me on that?” Neville asked. “Considering the ideas that, you know, you’ve had.”

“Alright, fine,” Draco said, scowling at him. But even so, his fingers had started to loosen from the parchment he held. “What’s your idea?”

“The Auror department got really fucked,” Neville started.

“They are not ever going to let me—”

“No, probably not,” Neville said. “But the office. They still need people.”

“You want me to become a secretary,” Draco said, aghast.

“You just said you tried the kitchen,” Neville pointed out and Draco only narrowed his eyes at him. “And I mean, you could do a lot worse.”

“Like unemployment entirely,” Draco said.

“You said it, not me,” Neville said.

Draco sighed, before he pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re assuming they’d even talk to me, which is more than anyone else has done all day.”

“Apparently I have a lot of sway these days with just about everyone,” Neville deadpanned and Draco looked up at him again.

But then he rolled his eyes and his shoulders had dropped, his hands loosened and for a second he looked more like he had before the war. Like the entire world wasn’t after him or attempting to press him into the ground.

“Malfoy?” a new voice asked suddenly, Harry Potter standing down the hall.

“Potter,” Draco said, his shoulders instantly going back up and Neville sighed.

“What are you doing here?” Harry asked.

“He’s looking for a job,” Neville said before Draco could bristle anymore and Draco turned to give him another angry expression. “I said the office needed some help.”

“You’re,” Harry blinked. “You’re helping Malfoy get a job? In—in the Auror office?”

“Sure,” Neville said, with far more punch than he felt.

Which is how he ended up shoving Draco into the office of the head of the Auror department, explaining that they all knew they needed more people to help out, and Draco had gone very well in school. At that point Draco helpfully produced the parchment he had been carrying around all day, containing a list of his courses and his marks in them.

For a moment Neville thought that even all his new influence wasn’t going to do anything but then the head of the entire department looked over his shoulder at where Harry Potter was lurking in the doorway.

“Do you agree with this?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, and between the two of them they got Draco Malfoy a job.

“I didn’t realize,” Harry said, as they walked away, leaving Draco looking shocked in the office.

“Realize what?” Neville asked.

“That you’d gotten so close during the year,” Harry said, and there was something funny lurking around the corners of his voice.

Neville thought about the way Draco still looked at him sideways, like he thought Neville was going to just twist the knife in and ruin his life at any moment. He thought about Draco showing him the Dark Mark in the bathroom on the Hogwart’s Express, the wildness in his eyes and the stoop in his shoulders. “We didn’t,” he said, and walked away.

-0-

Neville sat in Lavender’s room, flipping through the Quibbler without reading a single word of it.

“Why are you still doing that?” she asked abruptly, and Neville almost threw the magazine into the air. She had barely spoken a word to anyone since the battle.

“Doing what?” he asked cautiously, folding the magazine down into his lap.

“Waiting,” she said, and she was sitting next to the window, watching him with narrowed eyes.

“Because I don’t mind waiting,” he said with a shrug.

She was still in Saint Mungo’s because no one knew what to do with a werewolf. Even if the healers had been willing to let her go, they had no where to send her.

“I’m not something you can fix,” she said, curling her fingers into the windowsill, but her eyes were too intense as she watched him.

“Who said I was trying to fix you?” Neville asked.

“Because you sit there, day after day, like you expect something from me. Like you think eventually I’ll snap and then I’ll heal and then things will be fine—”

“I don’t,” Neville said. “I think you’re forgetting who I usually come to see here,” and that seemed to surprise her enough that she came back from the window, sitting on the edge of the bed and staring. “It doesn’t matter to me if you talk to me, or if you don’t want to, or if you feel better, or if you never do. I’m used to sitting and waiting with people. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” she said.

“It is okay,” Neville repeated. “I don’t need something from you, Lavender. You’re just my friend and I’m here for you.”

She drew one of her knees up, looking at him over it. “I don’t think anything is going to be okay again.”

“Yeah, I feel like that too, some days,” Neville said, and at least there was dirt in his backyard, and a place to hide when the world got to be too much. “But you’re talking to me now. That’s different.”

“You’re not going to start saying things about steps are you?” she said. “Like oh you have to start taking these steps if you expect to ever,” and her voice broke.

“No,” Neville said after a beat.

“How’s Auror training going?” she asked.

“Really bad, some days,” Neville said. “I’m pretty sure our main teacher survived the war by just not being in it. One of the other cadets was in France the whole time.”

“Bitches,” Lavender muttered and Neville had to laugh.

“I’m trying not to say that to their faces. It feels selfish, sometimes, when some people fought this war twice but—”

“But our entire year was a battlefield,” Lavender said.

“When we were just kids,” Neville said and she looked further down. “Lav, you have to get out of here.”

“And go where?” she asked, head jerking back up. “That’s the problem. They want to keep me, to poke me, to tell me about how I need to get better. But there’s also nowhere to go. I’ve checked and—”

Neville looked down, hands twisting in his lap for a long, horrible minute as he tried to decide. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Don’t you remember what I was like in school?” she asked.

“You were a gossip,” Neville said. “But that was a year ago.”

The corner of her mouth twitched. “What sort of secret?”

“Where I’m living,” Neville said and her brows inched up.

“Is that a secret?”

“Currently,” Neville said. “Only Luna knows.”

“And why would I need to keep this secret?” she asked.

“Because it needs a lot of work still,” Neville said. “Work I’m doing. I’m not saying you’d have to do any of it. But it’s not really good, yet, but there’s space and it’s magic, and it’s unplottable, and you could stay there, if you wanted.”

She stared at him for a long, horrible moment and Neville almost left just because his chest felt too big for his entire body.

“You don’t want me to live with you.”

“I literally just said I did,” Neville said. “I mean, I went about it sort of like a dick, but I just said I did, Lav.”

“I’m a werewolf,” she said.

“And the house could use some modifications,” Neville replied. “If that made you feel better. And it’s not like they’re going to skimp on the wolfsbane potion for a war hero.”

“They still don’t want to let me go,” she said. “I’m not—right enough for them.”

“Look at all this talking you’re doing,” Neville said, standing up. “You’re doing just about as well as the rest of us.”

“Neville—”

“I’ll go talk to them,” Neville said.

“I still haven’t agreed,” she said, but her eyes were wide.

“Are you going to tell me no?” Neville asked and for a moment she just stared at him in stubbornness. But then she sighed, tilting her head to one side.

“You know I won’t.”

He hesitated at the door. “I’m not going to force you to do this, you know.”

“I know,” she said. “I think that’s the only reason I can handle it.”

“Alright,” Neville said, and he opened the door.

“But why is it a secret?” she asked.

“You’ll see,” Neville said, and he thought maybe he was going crazy.

But then again, he was already going crazy, being in that house by himself, and surrounded by people who didn’t understand during the day. The walls echoed with ghosts and he was exhausted all the time.

Even the cheery light of the greenhouse was only bringing him so much comfort.

“Nev,” Lavender said before he could leave. “You don’t have to do this.”

“No,” Neville agreed. “Which means I’m doing it because I want to.”

“Alright,” she said, which is how they ended up standing in front of Spinner’s End later that afternoon, Lavender holding a single bag.

“How,” she managed. “I mean—how?”

“How what?” Neville asked.

“Listen, rumors are already going around about what happened to Snape’s house,” Lavender said. “Prince might have been poor by the time she married a Muggle but everyone knows about the old wizard families and their houses. So how the fuck did you end up with Snape’s wizarding house?”

“He left it to me,” Neville said, opening the door.

“He did _what_?” she managed, and he held the door open until she finally crossed the threshold, looking around cautiously.

“It’s a long story,” Neville said and she narrowed her eyes at him.

“Which you’re going to tell me,” she said, some of her old force in her voice.

“Maybe,” Neville hedged. “But not today.”

“Alright, fine,” she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder and looking around again. “I can see why you asked me to keep it a secret.”

“For now, anyway,” he said, and she didn’t even comment on the vial of memories on the mantlepiece, even though it was far too obvious what it was.

For a moment they stood there, in the old and still decrepit house. 

“It needs a lot of work,” she said.

“I did say that,” Neville said, but he found himself smiling, slow, the feeling unfamiliar. “Come on. I didn’t really make a room ready but we can do that and then I’ll show you the greenhouse.”

“Of course you have a greenhouse,” she said, but then they went upstairs and tried to find the least dilapidated room for her to claim as her own.

But that night when Neville woke up screaming, a light turned on down the hallway and when he was trying to catch his breath, Lavender pushed the door open.

“Lav—”

“I wasn’t sleeping either,” she said. “I was going to put tea on.”

Neville looked at the clock on the wall and thought about the next morning and only nodded.

When they were downstairs and she handed him the cup of tea, he found her watching his hands. “What?”

“They’re not shaking as much anymore,” she said and he looked down, realizing it at the same time.

“So they aren’t.”

“Well,” she said, sitting down across from him, and it felt more like it had back at Hogwarts, when they had a cause and a battle to fight and friends to fight it will. “I guess it’s good to know some things can heal.”

“Yeah,” he said, still staring at his hands and the tea mug between them. “Some things.”

When he looked up she was smiling, and he wondered if it felt as unfamiliar on her face as it did to him. “Here’s to some things, then,” she said, and raised her mug between them.

The next morning when he dragged himself into the Auror office, it didn’t even feel as bad as most mornings.

“You are way too okay for how early it is,” Ron said, and Neville only shrugged, because he hadn’t even realized he was acting any differently.

But then again he was probably still smiling.


End file.
